T. E. Lawrence, 'Playground Football'
attributed to Lawrence (see Wilson p. 26)

Oxford High School Magazine, Vol. II, No. 1, March 1904

Note: this pseudonymous essay is a companion piece to the subsequent article 'Playground Cricket', which is signed by Lawrence. Their content and style suggest that they are by the same author.

As there does not appear to be any handbook published on playground football, a few words on the subject will be appropriate. The game consists of two sides; and any number may play on each side; also any number may belong to neither side; in fact most belong to no side, but are free agents: this is one advantage of the game, for if you are a free agent you may suppose yourself on which side you like. At first sight it would seem to be a drawback; one wouldn't know which way to kick the ball; but - and this is one point in which 'Playground Football' differs from ordinary football - we do not score by goals. As a matter of fact there seems to be only one goal in the place where we play the game, so that it would be rather difficult to know whose goal it was. The chief way to score is to kick the ball against a window; this scores the price of the window. It is rather expensive to be a good player. The method of play is entirely different from ordinary football, although that may seem a trivial matter to some. It is not necessary to kick the ball; you can kick anyone else; it will do just as well, unless they are bigger than you, but there you have to take your chance. I should like to pass a few remarks on the ball. When I say 'ball,' I don't necessarily mean 'ball': a ball is not at all necessary; a stone or a cap (someone else's for preference) will do as well. The only indispensable adjunct is the playground; you must have that. I believe there is a proverb somewhere about a rolling stone gathering no moss; I am quite sure a rolling football gathers a lot of mud. When a football is done with, the mud might be used to plant a flower-garden round the playground. One could make a nice lot of statistics out of playground football. For instance, if all the mud were scraped off a football in a year it would make a mountain as high as Mt. Shotover. All the force used in a year to kick a football would be given off in a millennium by £5,000 worth of radium or in five minutes by two people discussing the fiscal question. Now that I have started talking about radium, I have a question for the scientific, 'why does the ball always seem to be attracted by corners in the playground?' For instance, you will see in some corner a little group of boys discussing the fiscal question or attending to their 'Little Maries'; up comes the ball, and, depositing a quantity of its superfluous mud where it is not required, knocks someone in the face; then someone will cry out 'Hands,' or 'Who told you to kick the ball?' Then before they have picked themselves up and repaired the damaged portions of their anatomy, the ball rolls off merrily to jump over the wall into someone else's back garden. So it keeps on, ever rolling, until the bell rings and all is done.

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